


A Hero on the Road

by Morbane



Category: Earthquake Weather - Seanan McGuire (Song)
Genre: Constructive Criticism Welcome, Gen, Meta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-04
Updated: 2016-06-04
Packaged: 2018-07-12 07:04:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7090744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Morbane/pseuds/Morbane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the Wood, no one cares to hear the way a story ends.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Hero on the Road

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AlexSeanchai (EllieMurasaki)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/EllieMurasaki/gifts).



> Just a quick treat - hope you enjoy!

There are cracks in the sky this morning before the dawn, and cracks in the earth. When the rose owl flies, she stays within the cover of the trees. She's never heard of anyone falling _out_ through the cracks in the skies, but then you wouldn't, would you? They would merely be gone, and there are so many other ways to disappear.

The first lie: it's hard to leave the Wood. She doesn't even have to tell that one, some days, because the folk who fall in through the cracks assume it. Here they are where they know none of the rules. Poor souls, she thinks, and sometimes she almost means it.

There's a Hero on the Road. The rose owl knows this because of the way she walks, and because she is on the Road. The Road is safe for Heroes, but the rose owl doesn't cross it, not in earthquake weather. She lets the Hero see her, and then flits away through the Wood. 

The Hero sees her. "Come back!" the Hero calls to her. The rose owl chuckles to herself, and doesn't turn back. But the Hero doesn't leave the Road.

The Road is safe for Heroes, because it leads to the story's end. A Hero isn't afraid of the end of a story. A Hero isn't afraid of what is waiting for them on the other side.

But in the Wood, the stories never end.

Traitors and tricksters, rabbits and queens - they all know each other's stories, and compete to tell the Heroes, to lure them from the Road. In the Wood, a Hero becomes yet another story without an end. The damsel that he wanted to rescue won't want to be saved. The Queen that she would have served will enslave her. Blood mixes with mud in the undergrowth of the Wood.

It's beautiful, of course. Even the cracks, when other skies and other earths stream through, where the Wood interlaces with other worlds. Isn't danger beautiful?

The Hero has that kind of beauty. The rose owl sees the Rabbit, drawn to the Hero, step onto the Road.

Perhaps by noon the Rabbit and the Hero will be gone, their stories finished. The Road can run abruptly to its ends.

But the Queen calls and the Rabbit runs away.

There are people in the wood who want to be saved as much as the Hero wants to save them; those who came here in earthquake weather, and never learned how to leave. But to find them, the Hero will have to leave the Road, and her own story. Many do. Most never find it again.

The sun is coming up. It papers over the cracks in the sky with an innocent blue. It sings a lullaby to the rose owl.

The rose owl closes her eyes and settles into the trees. Perhaps the Hero will be gone when the stars come out. Perhaps she'll have left the Road. But in the Wood, no one cares half as much about the way a story might end as they do about the way that it begins. If the story is done by nightfall, then it wasn't a story worthy of the Wood. But if the Hero's still on the road by then, the rose owl will swoop down again, to see if she can lead the Hero to the Midnight Ball.


End file.
